If you receive an award at the 65th IMO (65th International Mathematical Olympiad) as an international student, to what extent would it help your college applications? (Given you have good grades, testings, and essays)
For an IMO international student applying to MIT, about half have gotten in recent history.
Don’t have much info re other highly selective colleges, but if I had to guess, I would say a 25% chance at Harvard and Princeton.
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In the U.K. it’s essentially an automatic admit to Cambridge, according to my college’s alumni letter a few years ago. Whether you will receive enough money to attend may be a different matter.
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Wow, why does this competition have such high percentile? that is very impressive. Is this only for the ones who received “awards” or for everyone who attended
It’s because there are only six people per country that achieve this. A gold medal is best of course, but making the team is an honor in itself.
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So as an international student, if you get an award at that competition, it will boost your chances for top schools (HYPSM + ivies)? How does IMO awards compared to USAMO awards?
My understanding from @hebegebe is that IMO participants (international) have about a 50% admit rate at HYPSM.
USAMO would only be domestic students for obvious reasons. I’d guess that USAMO qualifiers probably have about a 30-40% admit rate at HYPSM, i.e. ten times as likely as matched peers but not guaranteed. That’s just based on anecdotal evidence as a parent and teacher.
What about IMO awardees, Internationals who won awards at the IMO (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Honorable Mention)
That is such a tiny group I can’t imagine there are meaningful statistics. I’m sure it’s a good thing on the application, though!
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The students are competing for different pools, so not directly comparable. An international IMO applicant is competing for the roughly 10% of international student spots that the highly selective schools target. The USAMO students are competing for the domestic student pool.
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International applicants apply at the start of senior year, so if an International applicant want to have an IMO or I(x)O award on their application, they must win that award in their junior year or before? That is extremely hard and challenging, because the majority of IMO Awardees are seniors or students who already graduated competing in the break before college. I never competed at the IMO, but I heard that the majority of IMO Awardees attends top universities in their own country, only a few goes to HYPSM. Is it because they got rejected from all HYPSM or because they chose to stay in their home countries?
What’s the reason for your keen interest in this? Are you close to that level?
Each country can have its own policies for selecting its team, and no, it doesn’t try to align with US college admissions. But note that for regular decision, you can send updates through early March.
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I have a good friend that did the IMO and got an award in the IMO this year. He received it in his junior year and is currently applying early decision to an Ivy. His stats and standardize testings are all perfect, and he have a lot of other amazing ECs and international honors. However, since the International pool is extremely competitive, he isn’t sure if he have a good chance. Since there is little to no information regarding to IMO Awardees’ college decisions, he is unsure how much this award really meant.
His best bet is MIT.
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